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It’s Rushkoff who we owe many of our contemporary terms, including “viral media” and “social currency.” Currently Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at the City University of New York, his most recent books is Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now.
Below are Doug Rushkoff’s favorite books, available to purchase as a set or individually. See the full list...

10

Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Tom Wolfe

This is a novel, but it's all basically the true story of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. It describes the LSD experience as well as its cultural implications in a way that anyone can grasp and feel. It's also a contemporary novelist at the height of his powers. It was crucial for my own development, showing me how to find and chronicle a seemingly esoteric movement. It was my model for my first real book, Cyberia.

9

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth

R. Buckminster Fuller

He realized that our problems are not innate to existence, but problems of design. This book is by far the most accessible of what he has written, and took maybe two hours to read. But it encapsulates the notion that "specialization" wasn't necessarily about getting better at stuff; it was about preventing any one person from knowing too much.

8

Homo Ludens

Johan Huizinga

The translation is god-awful but a new one should be out before too long. Huizinga says that we aren't homo sapiens (man the knower) but homo ludens - man the player. Dogs don't play as practice for the hunt, they hunt to have energy to play.

Memorial

The Rosy Crucifixion: Sexus

To the End of the Land

Grand lists is a curated arts site specializing in books and movies selected by 100 public figures and celebrities, ranging from designers, musicians, artists, actors, performers and directors, to politicians, novelists, scientists and athletes.